


with the (poisoned) wind

by Liu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4640958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/pseuds/Liu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry needs to get to a crime family's house to look for clues. Pretending to date Leonard Snart is his only ticket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with the (poisoned) wind

**Author's Note:**

> Another one from the series 'this was supposed to be a drabble and it got out of hand'. I love fics where someone has to pretend to be dating someone for some posh event, so I thought I could make it happen.
> 
> I have no beta, so all remaining mistakes or typos are mine. I'll be forever grateful if you point them out to me.
> 
> Awesome [graphics set](http://coldsflash.tumblr.com/post/130076104941/with-the-wind) made for this fic by [coldsflash on tumblr](http://coldsflash.tumblr.com/).

“What do we have on them?” Barry asks, his jaw still pretty sore where the bone is knitting a web of hairline fractures back together. His ego is a little sore, too, as he thinks back to Oliver’s advice about taking the time to investigate before he comes rushing in. In Barry’s defense, all those men seemed like ordinary goons at first glance: super-strength and advanced agility started showing only when he was already fighting them.

 

“We’ve got no ID so far,” Cisco frowns at the computer screens. “But it doesn’t look like they’re metas. The security cameras show all of them displaying metahuman levels of physical strength during the actual raid, but you said only some of them were faster and stronger when you caught up with them.”

 

Barry can only nod: the guy who broke his jaw was pretty strong, and it felt like punching a solid wall with another one, but the rest of them seemed pretty ordinary, if one overlooks the fact that ordinary people don’t usually carry machine guns.

 

“We think someone has found a way to temporarily enhance these men,” Caitlin speaks up, her worried expression mirroring Cisco’s.  “And we need to figure out who and why, because whatever those men are getting, it can be dangerous, not only for those they attack, but for them as well.”

 

Barry sighs.

  
“We’ll need some help.”

 

…..

 

“I thought by ‘help’, you meant ‘Joe’,” Cisco grumbles. Barry’s given up on trying to persuade them that occasionally, Captain Cold can be useful to their cause, mostly because he himself is still not sure that the trouble is worth it.

 

Snart smirks, in that self-satisfied way of his, and raises his hands:

 

“I can leave.”

 

“Not before you tell us who we’re dealing with,” Barry decides to cut to the chase and points at the screen. “You know these men?”

 

Snart gives the footage a perfunctory glance and shrugs.

  
“No.”

  
“Great, so now you can-“ Cisco starts, but Snart interrupts with an impatient wave:

 

“Doesn’t mean I don’t know who they work _for_. They hit a Santini business, so they must have someone backing them to get that bold. The guns they have are pretty specific to a certain location. And the warehouses you chased them to?” he looks up at Barry with a smug smirk. “I’ve been there before.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Cisco rolls his eyes, “your knowledge of the criminal life in Central City is astonishing, can we move past your gloating to the part where you actually _tell_ us who they are?”

 

Snart looks up, annoyed to be interrupted in one of his spiels, and Barry really wishes this wouldn’t turn into the usual Ramon-Snart pissing contest: it’s a little exhausting to work with when he actually needs both of them to cool it and learn how to work together. (He can’t believe he just thought the phrase ‘cool it’, either – Snart must be a horrible influence on his mental processing.)

 

“Everything points to the Darbynians.”

 

The announcement is followed by a moment of silence in which they’re all trying to wrap their heads around that.

  
“I thought The Mist wiped them out,” Cisco recovers first. “You know, Kyle Nimbus, the guy you let loose on this city?”

 

Barry mentally groans, again, but Snart doesn’t seem phased by the reminder of his previous betrayal. Barry doubts that the guy even _sees_ it as betrayal – what did he say that time, that he was ‘furthering his goals’? Something to that effect. And right now, he’s giving Cisco that look which always makes Barry feel like he’s five years old and being told that putting a pea up his nose isn’t smart.

 

“Yes, the guy you illegally imprisoned for an indefinite period of time and wanted to ship off to a remote island with no return ticket did kill some major Darbynian players. But surely even you can’t be naïve enough to believe that there are only eleven men in a given group.”

 

Cisco, predictably, bristles.

 

“Is this patronizing Crime-Yoda thing gonna take long?”

 

“Shut up and listen, you should,” Snart huffs, and Barry can see Cisco fight through a minor stroke at having Captain Cold understand a Star Wars reference. Barry himself is probably less surprised than he should be. “The Darbynians of Central City were a part of a larger syndicate. They’ve recently sent a replacement to restore order and freeze the Santini progress into the Darbynian territory: Dalita Sargsyan, the old boss’s sister. The masked men must be hers.”

 

“Awesome,” Cisco huffs. “Mob wars – that’s what Central City needs.”

 

“We need to figure out what those men were on,” Caitlin steps in, and Barry wants to hug her because no matter how much she disapproves of Barry asking Leonard Snart for help, _again_ , she’s always a little less prone to sarcastic jabs and angry pouting about it. At least until Heatwave’s in the picture, which is, thankfully, not the case today. “Also we need to know if it was a one-time deal or if this Dalita plans to use it in the future.”

 

“Dalita will use whatever she can to get what she wants.” Something in the way Snart says it makes Barry wonder just how familiar the man is with the Darbynians. He certainly didn’t make a move when the leaders were slaughtered, and he didn’t kill Nimbus when he had the opportunity, but he does seem a little too well-acquainted with the inner workings of the family. “Currently, what she wants it’s revenge. She’s set up an event for everyone even marginally useful under the pretense of a social gathering. After she figures out who can help her hunt Nimbus down the fastest, it’ll be an open season on the man.”

 

That could be useful: if Snart agrees to help, he could be their way of finding out how many super-strong goons he’s going to have to fight.

  
“How do you know so much about this?” Cisco’s eyes narrow, and Snart’s mouth turns up in a smug smirk.

  
“Isn’t that why you called me?” he asks innocently. “Besides, I’ve got an invitation to this party.”

  
“An invitation?”

  
Snart pulls the cold gun off his belt and raises it over his shoulder. Barry gives him plus points for not shoving it in Cisco’s face (like the last time).

 

“Ah. Point taken.”

 

The cold gun gets safely tucked back into Snart’s belt as he continues:

  
“Dalita knows that Mick and I can get the job done. The party’s on Friday, at the Darbynian house.”

 

Barry’s got half a mind to ask how this woman knows so much about Captain Cold and Heatwave’s capabilities, but he refrains out of the need to ask more important questions.

 

“Can you look around for any suspicious substances that suddenly give people super-strength?”

 

But of course this can’t be _that_ simple. Nothing ever is, with Leonard Snart.

 

“I’m not going to compromise myself by asking inappropriate questions. What I _can_ do is get one of you in as my ‘plus one’.”

  
“I am not pretending to date Captain Cold,” Caitlin says automatically, taking a step back. Snart rolls his eyes and shakes his head:

  
“It wouldn’t fly with Dalita anyway. She knows I’m gay.”

  
Cisco chokes on the drink he’s currently loudly sipping through a straw (mostly because he knows the sound annoys Snart tremendously).

 

He gets a cool look in response to his coughing.

  
“Problem?”

 

“ _How_ does an Armenian mob lady know that?” Cisco’s voice is raw from all the liquid sugar that likely went down the wrong pipe.

  
“Long story,” Snart smirks, suggesting that he would be inclined to tell it if only his sister wouldn’t be mad that he made Cisco choke to death. Her obsession with the engineer is still a bit worrying. “Involves Raffi being an idiot and sending his mother an incriminating photo by accident.”

  
  
“Raffi Darbinyan?” Caitlin asks, and Cisco types something, probably the name, into the computer to get with the program.

  
“The very same.”

  
“You dated Raffi Darbinyan?” Barry raises an eyebrow, because he does remember the name: if he’s not mistaken, Raffi was the guy who tried to save his family from the poisonous gas by shooting the windows.

  
“Well I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘dating’,” Snart lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. Barry still feels bad for him.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says before he can think twice about that.

 

“We had sex a few times, Scarlet, I wasn’t engaged to the guy. Now, if you’re all done thinking about who I sleep with… do you want a free ticket to the Darbynian house or not?”

  
“I’m not pretending to date Captain Cold either,” Cisco snorts, and Snart’s disconcerting eyes shift to Barry with a smirk.

  
“Not who I had in mind, anyway.”

 

……………..

 

Agreeing to Snart’s suggestion is like a dream. A truly, epically bizarre dream in which monkeys grow butterfly wings and a clan of Buddhist microwaves rule the world. Barry’s still not quite sure he’s awake the next day when he picks up his phone and blinks away from his microscope at a text message.

 

_What time do you get off work? Drinks are on me._

The number doesn’t ring any bells and he’s not aware that Iris got a new number (her texts tend to consist of barely decipherable codes anyway), so Barry fires off a ‘ _sorry, wrong number’_ and goes back to the fiber analysis that Singh requested yesterday which means it should have been _finished_ yesterday, but unfortunately a bunch of criminals decided to get high on Super-Soldier Serum, so Barry did not exactly have the time.

 

_I know this is the RIGHT number, Scarlet. What time?_

Barry gapes at the phone for a few seconds, then lets out a heartfelt groan. What on earth does Snart want now? And why does he even have his _number_?! The jerk better not have kidnapped or threatened anyone for it (though he probably did). Barry suppresses the immediate urge to check if Cisco and Caitlin are okay, and stabs his phone’s screen with his finger.

 

_not gettin drinks w/u. we’re not buddies snart_

Almost immediately, his phone starts ringing. Barry makes a mental note to save that number and assign the theme song from Jaws to it, or something equally awful. Definitely not anything to do with ice, Cold would just end up loving it.

 

“We’re still not getting anything,” Barry answers with a statement as clear and simple as he can make it.  
  
“We are,” Snart replies, equally clear and simple, and also audibly amused over the line. “If we’re going to pretend that we’re dating, we need to make an appearance or two together in public.”

 

Barry rubs the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

 

“Why don’t you just tell the Darbynians I’m your business associate? Or your thief apprentice?”

  
“Because you don’t have a criminal bone in your body, Scarlet, and it shows. What time do I pick you up?”

  
“How about five minutes to never?” Barry grunts, actually mortified that Snart is going to show up at the precinct. Which would be crazy, because criminal records erased or not, some of the people working here would still recognize him and that would mean jail time: or, more likely, several people with a golden hand from when Lisa would inevitably show up to rescue her brother.

  
“Six o’clock on the dot, then.”

  
“No!” Barry yelps into the phone. “Alright, alright, just this once, okay?! Half past seven. Just text me the name of the place where you want to go.”

 

“No can do. I’ll pick you up. Arriving together is a part of it. You really are an awful liar, aren’t you, Scarlet.”

  
“Fine!” Barry throws himself back in his chair, making it rock on two legs only. The thought of falling on his head doesn’t bother him: with Snart, it feels like the world is teetering over an abyss anyway. “First off, stop calling me Scarlet, it makes me feel like a heroine in a Harlequin novel. Second, don’t come to the station, are you out of your mind? I’m not going to explain to anyone here why I’m meeting up with you. I’ll be in the Liberty Square before seven.”  
  
“Can’t wait, Scarlet. See you in one hundred and twenty six minutes.”

 

Barry wastes a couple of those minutes frowning at his phone after the call. Then, he vindictively saves the number as ‘Rhett’ and goes back to work.

 

……

 

“You’re late.”  
  
Barry looks around to locate the owner of the obnoxious voice, and his eyebrows draw together as he sees the man pulling a helmet off his head, straddling a bike. No, not _a_ bike. Barry remembers it very well from where he looked up at it while lying on the ground after being betrayed by this very jerk.

  
“You can’t be serious.”

  
“I am,” Snart nods coolly, glancing at his watch. “Fourteen minutes, Barry.”

  
Somehow, ‘Barry’ is worse than ‘Scarlet’ when Snart is the one saying it, mostly because it makes Barry feel like they’re establishing a level of intimacy here that he’s not completely comfortable with.

  
The man holds a spare helmet to Barry, who takes a step back.

  
“I’m not sitting behind you on _that_.”  
  
Barry’s always had trust issues with motorcycles, and he doesn’t think being forced to ride one with his nemesis driving it would be the best cure for that. Snart, however, just rolls his eyes.

  
“You’ve got accelerated healing. If we crash, the only one who’s gonna end up with actual broken bones is me.”

  
“My bones still break,” Barry huffs and accepts the helmet, mostly because people are starting to look at them weirdly, and they’re a little too close to the CCPD station to get away with acting suspicious. The things he does for this city, Barry thinks as he pulls the helmet over his face.

  
“Your bones would be fine the next day. Mine would take at least six weeks to heal, and I hate casts. Trust me – I won’t crash the bike.”

 

Being asked to trust Captain Cold is just a little bit ironic, especially on this bike; Barry wonders if this is some elaborate joke on Snart’s part, but he climbs onto the back anyway. Once seated, he bites his lip, unsure what to do and how to prevent himself from falling off this hellish thing. When Snart reaches back and pulls Barry’s arm around his waist, Barry doesn’t even know if he’s glad for something to hold on to, or petrified that his ‘something’ is a surprisingly warm body of Captain Cold.

  
“Don’t fall,” Snart smirks before he pulls his helmet back on; Barry tightens his arms around his waist.

  
“Ha ha. Don’t crash,” he shoots back over the roar of the engine, and wishes he could’ve just taken a bus to whatever hellhole Snart is dragging him to.

 

…..

 

“Seriously?” Barry sighs when they stop and he gets his helmet off his head just to see the run-down building with a blinking ‘Saints & Sinners’ sign.

  
“I’m fond of this place,” Snart shrugs. “Brings back memories.”

  
“Of your violent criminal past?”

  
“Of you coming to ask for my help.”

  
“…right.”

 

Barry might’ve been more nervous then, uncertain if Snart would greet him with a gun to the face – but the bar is still far from Barry’s usual hangouts, and he finds himself desperately wishing for the warm familiarity of Jitters. Then again, bringing Snart there would probably give Iris (and by proxy, Joe) a heart attack.

 

As they walk in, Barry’s ready to be grateful for small mercies, such as Snart not insisting on holding Barry’s hand or something equally ridiculous. The bartender does a double take when she sees them walk in, and leans on the bar, displaying her intricately tattooed arms.

  
“So you _did_ get him to agree to a date, huh?” she sniggers, and Snart smirks back at her: Barry really doesn’t want to know what he told her. Or does he? _What_ did Snart tell her? He imagines the two of them standing at the bar after Barry left the first time he was here, Snart making awful puns or even worse innuendos about Barry’s visit… did he tell the bartender that he was interested, that Barry was some sort of a conquest? Barry finds himself hoping this whole plan isn’t one of Snart’s elaborate schemes, this time with the endgame of winning a bet with a bartender.

 

“Still trying to win him over,” Snart looks at Barry with an open, honest (fake) smile like he’s actually making an effort to be a good date. It’s disconcerting how that stare travels through Barry’s body like a shock of lightning.

  
“You should take that as a compliment,” the bartender grins at Barry and offers her hand over the bar. “Lenny’s really picky about his guys.”

  
Now _that_ is information Barry could live without, and he wants to shoot back something about how he can’t be that picky if he was fuck-buddies with a son of a crime family, but then again, people probably don’t care much about one’s criminal records in this place, and also he’s not technically supposed to know about that, so he keeps his mouth shut and shrugs, offering a small smile to the bartender.

 

But while she keeps up the light chatter with Snart, Barry wonders about something else. Raffi Darbynian was Tall-Dark-and-Handsome all the way, his physical attractiveness apparent even when he was just a poisoned corpse. While Barry… well, he’s kinda tall, but that’s about it in the looks department. And yet, the bartender wasn’t surprised when Snart walked in with Barry in tow – which makes Barry’s desperately curious about what Snart said about him before.

 

He tries to focus on what is being said at the moment, but the last thing he catches is:

 

“…so we’ll just play a game or two and we’re gone, Angie. What do you want to drink?”

  
That last part is addressed to Barry, who’s trying to get what ‘game’ Snart is talking about – hopefully not pool, which Barry’s _hopeless_ at.  
  
Before Barry can decide if asking for a whole bottle of something is gonna be considered weird, a beer is set on the table in front of Len, with the bartender (Angie?) grinning at him:  
  
“Ice-cold, just the way you like it.”

  
Barry scowls at the bottle, raising an eyebrow slightly when he realizes there’s a picture of a snowy mountain on it.

  
“You’re driving,” he huffs, and Snart smirks at him:

  
“Don’t worry, darling. It’s non-alcoholic.”  
  
Barry looks back at the bartender. It’s the ‘darling’ that makes him decide to just go for it.

 

“A double-shot of the strongest thing you have, please?”

  
She laughs, but pulls a dusty bottle of tequila off the highest shelf.  
  
“That happy about the present company?” she teases as she sets the glass in front of him. Snart gives him a curious look, and Barry downs the drink in one go. As usual, there’s burning in his throat and his eyes water a little, but whatever buzz comes with the alcohol disappears in a split second.  
  
Snart looks impressed. Barry decides not to feel flattered because a criminal is impressed by his ability to put away double shots of tequila. He’s not twelve anymore, he’s not desperately wishing the cool kids would like him.  
  
Also Snart is a _thief_ , not a _cool guy_. No pun intended.  
  
Maybe the tequila did have some effect. Barry wants to test that theory some more, but for some reason, he doesn’t want to make it look like he’s an alcoholic, so he lets Snart pull him away from the bar, and towards – shit – the pool tables.

 

“I’m not playing,” he warns, which results in Snart rolling his eyes as he swallows a mouthful of beer.

  
“If you’re this difficult on every date, there’s no wonder you’re still single.”

 

Barry splutters. Snart hands him a cue with a challenging smirk. Barry feels the urge to hit him over the head with it, but he reminds himself of the super-strong goons that are not even on half-friendly terms with him, and takes it.  
  
Snart sets up the balls; when Barry leans over the table to try and aim, he hears a scoff and looks up with an annoyed frown.  
  
“What?!”

  
“You’re holding the cue all wrong,” Snart shakes his head and comes up to the table. He leans over Barry to adjust his grip and Barry feels the same warmth he was pressed up against on the bike plastered all over his back. He tenses instantly; Snart rests his hand on Barry’s forearm.

  
“Relax. I’m just trying to help so you don’t embarrass yourself on an actual date in the future.”

 

“Gee, thanks,” Barry mumbles. “I would never go play pool for a date, you know?”

  
“No?” Snart asks casually, while his hand moves to Barry’s, shifting his fingers around the cue. “Where do you go, then?”

  
“Coffee. Movies. Bowling, sometimes.”

  
“You can teach me how bowl next time, heal your ego,” Snart chuckles, and it’s a surprisingly pleasant sound, brushing past Barry’s ear due to the proximity. He’s always snide, sarcastic, and Barry wonders if the man has subconsciously dropped into some ‘date mode’, because his voice is deeper, softer, his movements a little less controlled.

 

Of course, even Snart’s attempts to teach him don’t make Barry an expert pool player: he’s having doubts about ranking even as an amateur, because he ends up losing all three games so quickly that Snart eventually gives up all pretense of friendly competition and simply tries to improve Barry’s aim. He’s leaning over Barry, brushing up against him, touching his wrist, his fingers, adjusting the cue or, on one occasion, Barry’s posture, his long hands on Barry’s hips, the outer sides of his thighs, and Barry wonders if this is just about the pool game or if Snart’s doing the whole uncomfortably obvious flirting again.

  
But the thing is, it’s not obvious. Snart keeps a steady commentary running on where Barry has gone wrong with a particular hit, and his mind seems to be completely on the geometry of the game. His pulse is steady when he presses against Barry’s back again and Barry can feel Snart’s heartbeat between his shoulderblades; he sounds genuinely frustrated when he huffs into Barry’s ear after a horrendously botched hit.

  
“Really, Barry, you can run around moving cars at four hundred miles per hour, but you can’t manage to get a relatively slow ball into a motionless hole?”

  
“If that’s supposed to be encouraging, I get why you didn’t become a teacher,” Barry huffs back, which has Snart laughing, and Barry decides he’s had enough of making a fool of himself for a game he doesn’t care about, for a guy who he’s not even dating for real. When he straightens up, abandoning the cue over the table, he’s surprised to see the clock over the door point to eleven o’clock.  
  
“I have to go,” he says, and Snart gives him an unreadable look: then, he nods and leans in.  
  
For a crazy second, Barry thinks Snart’s going in for a kiss; he’s honestly angry with himself when he realizes the man’s just reaching around Barry for his beer. (He’s even angrier when he realizes that his reaction to the expectation of a kiss was half-closing his eyes, what the hell.)

  
“I’ll drive you,” Snart offers. Barry would honestly rather swallow rusty nails right about now. This whole ‘pretend’ thing is going to his head: despite all the humiliation at the pool table, Snart is a surprisingly nice date, and Barry’s not used to someone paying this kind of absolute attention to him.

  
Which says a lot about his levels of neediness. Barry’s not comfortable exploring those, much less with a guy like Snart, so he sets a brisk pace to the door, waving over his shoulder:  
  
“I’ll walk. Bye!”  
  
Once outside, he’s running without even caring for his jacket that’s going to catch on fire for sure. The run, the speed, should clear his head, but the thing he’s running from is right inside his head. When he gets home, his phone bleeps almost immediately.

 

_Coffee tomorrow?_

 

Barry collapses onto the bed with his jacket still smoking a bit and a loud groan muffled only by the pillow he’s trying to suffocate himself with.

 

………………

 

Barry spends the next two days avoiding Snart. Which isn’t exactly hard, it’s not like they run in the same circles (well, they do, on opposing sides, so Barry decides that doesn’t count) – but it does make Barry feel like a shitty person when he lies to get out of another fake date.

 

_How about lunch?_

_can’t-goin 2 crime scene now_

_Dinner, then._

_made plans with iris &eddie_

_dont even think about suggesting a double date!!_

_I wasn’t. Dining with a cop isn’t my idea of a good time._

That makes Barry pause, because a) he’s technically, in a broad sense of the word, a cop too, and b) does that mean that spending time with him _is_ Snart’s idea of a good time?! That question keeps swirling around in Barry’s head like a constant tingle of discomfort, even after he goes out of his way to actually _make_ plans with Iris and Eddie, who both act confused but agree to go out bowling with him in the evening. Who knows if Snart decides to stalk him: Barry needs a bulletproof alibi, and turning a lie into the truth is the best way to do that.

 

He can’t completely shake the discomfort, though, especially when he ends up having forty-five points over Iris and Eddie, and he can almost hear a ghost of Snart’s voice in his ear, asking him if his ego is satisfyingly un-bruised right now.

 

The next day, there’s no text. Barry keeps checking his phone (and mentally berating himself for it), but Snart keeps radio silence: it gets to the point where Barry’s actually worried if the Darbynians didn’t somehow get wind of Snart working with the Flash. He tells himself it’s ridiculous, but he’s preoccupied by the horror stories his mind keeps spawning all day, until it gets to the point where he’s actually _glad_ to see Snart, alive and well.

  
And sitting on Joe’s front porch.

  
“What are you _doing_ here?” Barry hisses, because is Snart out of his mind?!  
  
The man levels a cool stare at him and holds up the large clothes bag swung over his arm as a silent answer.

  
“I doubt you have something nice to wear to the party tomorrow.”

  
“I have a nice jacket,” Barry huffs, offended that Snart apparently thinks Barry lives in a dumpster. Also, he wears a button-up and a nice sweater most of the time, it’s not like he walks around in torn jeans and baggy hoodies (all the time). What’s wrong with his clothes? And why is he feeling so self-conscious about his clothing choices because of something _Snart_ said?

  
“My point exactly,” Snart executes a perfect eyeroll and gets off the porch bench, handing the clothes bag to Barry. “Try this on tonight. It should fit, but you can have it adjusted tomorrow if it doesn’t.”  
  
He’s off the porch by the time everything registers in Barry’s brain.

  
“Wait!” he yelps, and Snart turns around, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He’s not wearing his parka tonight, and he looks like something out of a fashion magazine, in his leather jacket, in that casual pose.

  
“Yes?” he asks, and even that smirk is worth its own photoshoot. And Barry really shouldn’t be thinking about that. Or thinking about how nice, different but nice, it would be if Snart wasn’t a wanted criminal and Barry could invite him in, for a little while.

  
“Thanks,” he mutters, embarrassed by his own lack of impulse control.

  
When he tries the tux on later, after Joe has fallen asleep (because Barry can’t risk Joe coming in and asking questions about Barry owning something with a four-digit price tag), it fits perfectly. Barry falls asleep that night wondering how Snart managed to get his measurements right.

 

…….

 

“Should I lie about my name?” Barry asks, watching the road disappear under the wheels of Snart’s car.  The tuxedo fits perfectly, but having something so expensive on while literally walking into the lion’s den isn’t what Barry would describe as comfortable.

  
“Don’t,” Snart shakes his head and takes a turn left. He’s been surprisingly adamant about Barry fastening his seatbelt: in Barry’s opinion, he’s awfully anal about road safety for a criminal who robs moving vans. “They likely know your name already, or they will know it after you show up with me. Your job, too.”

  
“Won’t they mind that you’re bringing a CCPD employee?”

  
“We’ll see.”

  
“Snart-“

  
“You should probably call me Len.”

 

“-you’re telling me you don’t _know_ \- what if they attack me? You do realize what will happen if they see me flash out of a bullet’s way?!”

 

“Nobody’s going to _shoot_ you, Barry. Relax. Don’t talk unless explicitly asked something.”

  
Barry still can’t believe Snart’s audacity by the time they reach the house. Sending a prayer up to the heaven, hoping that nobody will actually try to shoot him inside, he climbs out of the car and sighs.  
  
Yeah, okay, crime has to pay really well. The house is huge: high arches and thick, heavily decorated columns in marble, wood and gold line the courtyard, and when Snart leads him inside, Barry can’t help but stare up at the wonderfully intricate ceiling and chandelier. A server passes by and Len snatches two flutes of champagne: Barry does his best not to forget that he’s not supposed to have a high tolerance for alcohol, and sips on the drink instead of just guzzling it down like water. It’s actually pretty good, and when another server passes by with a tray of what looks like some gourmet type of finger food, Barry only takes one. He regrets it immediately when he stuffs the thing in his mouth and almost groans: it’s some sort of grilled fish, done to perfection, over some creamy spread and a dash of rosemary, and something else Barry can’t identify but his eyes immediately scan the crowd for the direction of that plate.

  
Snart looks amused, but Barry is very forgiving when the man hands Barry a serviette with four more pieces on it. Apparently, Snart doesn’t have the same sort of reservations about taking only the appropriate, polite amount of food, and Barry’s glad for that as he stuffs another piece in his mouth, looking around. Luxuriously dressed people are talking quietly in small groups, the air smells very lightly of jasmine and late summer, and there’s soft piano music in the background.

 

If it weren’t for the dozens of criminals all around them, Barry could almost enjoy it.

  
“Leonard!” a woman’s voice calls, the foreign accent, hard and sharp-edged, influencing the cadence. “It has been a long time.”

  
“Dalita,” Snart nods, his arm sneaking around Barry’s waist. Barry wonders if this is his way of ensuring that no-shooting clause he promised.

 

“I see you found a new boy for you,” she smirks at him: Barry decides this does not count as ‘being explicitly asked something’ and remains quiet, observing what he can about the new leader of the Darbynians. Physically, she’s not an imposing figure: somewhere around five feet five in a long, glittery dress and high heels, dark hair falling in heavy curls over her shoulders, she looks younger than she has to be. Only her eyes are hard and unforgiving as she gives Barry a perfunctory once-over: he feels naked, vulnerable under her stare.

 

“I have,” Snart says easily, giving Barry a smile that is probably designed to look in love, but Barry is mildly reassured by it anyway.

  
“Very handsome,” her words sound dry and emotionless, as if she were commenting on a nice carpet or a fake antique. Barry instantly feels inadequate, especially when she curls her upper lip a little, revealing shiny white teeth, turning her piercing eyes to Len again.

 

 “Not as striking as my Raffi, of course. But you were never so in love with him as he liked to think.”

  
“Not quite,” Len chuckles: Barry tries hard to keep quiet and _not_ to press up into Len’s side. He’s faced people who could teleport, fly, set themselves on fire or turn into poisonous clouds, and yet he feels in greater danger here, being not-so-silently judged by Len’s ex-mother-in-law.

 

Dalita nods at that, smirking right back at Len as if her son’s love life remained a source of amusement for her even after everything: Barry instantly feels bad when he remembers that her son’s actually dead.

 

“I trust your new boy is not a problem in our business?” she raises one perfectly painted eyebrow at Len, who simply shrugs:  
  
“That depends on the payout.”  
  
“Oh, I will make it worth your while. For now, have fun. Drink. Eat. Entertain your boy. Time for business will be later.”

 

With that, Dalita sails away, weaving through the crowd that parts for her easily, and Barry feels a little _less_ bad about her son’s death when he remembers that this whole party is basically assassin recruitment.

 

“More canapés?“ Len asks, completely unaffected, as if they weren’t just subjected to a mob lady’s scrutiny. Barry turns to him with a slightly unfocused look.

 

“Wha…?”

  
“The salmon things from earlier,” Len points at a server who is passing nearby. Barry shakes his head at that mournfully:

  
“We should go look for some clues. Any idea where I can find the boss’s office around this place?”

 

Len sighs, but the palm still on Barry’s hip (how come he hasn’t even noticed it there?) slides off and catches Barry’s hand, tugging him lightly in the direction of the stairs.

  
“Let’s go. We can’t be away from the party for long.”

  
“It’ll just take a minute,” Barry promises, then shrugs: “You can just point me in the right direction. You’re the one people know around here anyway – if I’m missing, nobody will notice.”

  
“I disagree. I arrive with a pretty arm candy and then I get ditched before the party even starts? I don’t even want to imagine what that would do to my reputation,” Len is smirking in that annoying way he has, but his eyes are kind of… sparkling with amusement, so Barry doesn’t feel like punching him in the face for calling him ‘arm candy’.

  
“Besides,” Len continues as he pulls Barry around the stairs, to a side corridor that looks deserted, “if someone finds you in there alone, they _will_ shoot you. If I’m with you, we can just pretend we snuck away for a little ‘alone time’.”  
  
Barry’s extremely grateful that the corridor is dark, because he’s pretty sure his face is the color of his Flash suit at the moment.

 

Len leans against the wall right next to the door, probably on the lookout – Barry at least hopes so, because he needs to go through the office fast. The files are endless, but he can’t find any mention of something that could’ve given those men super-strength. Whatever it is, Dalita Sargsyan doesn’t have it in writing, or at least not here: Barry’s about to tell Len they will have to look elsewhere when the door handle turns.  
  
Barry switches to speed-mode on auto-pilot: his first thought, in the micro-seconds he has to make a move, go to what Len said before, in that corridor, with a ridiculous smirk that Barry could _hear_ in his voice.

 

He’s in front of Len just as the door is starting to open, pushing the older man into the wall he’s leaning against. His hands go to Len’s neck and he’s returning to normal speed just as his mouth connects with Len’s and the door is pushed open all the way.  
  
Len’s hand curls against his hip immediately, and his tongue flickers over Barry’s lips right before Barry pulls away, acting all flustered (which he doesn’t even have to pretend, come on, he just _kissed Leonard Snart_ ) and embarrassed as one of the Darbynian goons glares at them.

  
“This room is off-limits,” he grunts dangerously.

  
“Sorry. I just couldn’t resist,” Len says and straightens his jacket, then takes Barry’s hand:  
  
“Come on, baby. We should go back.”  
  
And _baby?!_ Barry is pretty sure he didn’t search the office fast enough to phase himself into a different dimension, but one can never be certain.

 

The goon follows them until they mingle among the rest of the partying crowd, and Len swiftly hands Barry another flute of champagne: Barry downs it, not having the heart to tell Len that alcohol actually doesn’t do anything for him anymore. Though Len might suspect, after their last date and Barry’s double tequila. Len, who leans in, and a shiver runs down Barry’s spine as Len’s whisper brushes against his ear (also, when has Len become ‘Len’?! Barry doesn’t remember letting go of thinking about the man as ‘Snart’, whole with the grudging undertone).

  
“You do know I was originally joking about the ‘alone time’, Scarlet.”  
  
Barry opens his mouth before he even thinks of something good to snap back at Len. The first scream shakes the crowd into complete silence: panic sets in just a second later, and Barry’s mind is snapping into action mode. His first thought is that the police decided to crash the party, and Barry’s mentally groaning at the thought of the colleagues from CCPD finding Barry Allen, their unassuming dorky CSI, here in the Darbynian den, accompanied by one of the most wanted men of Central City.

 

One of the screams turns into an awful choking sound – then another, and another. A cloud of green rises and swirls over the people’s heads, descending abruptly into their midst. Everyone starts moving back from the cloud, people falling to the ground and others stumbling over them, effectively creating absolute chaos.

 

“I guess Dalita didn’t count with Nimbus taking his revenge first,” Len says dryly, and that kicks Barry into action.

  
“I have to go,” he mutters – he needs his suit to fight The Mist, or he’s going to end up revealing his identity to the whole Darbynian clan and Barry refuses to risk the lives of his friends again. Len grabs him and pulls him back into the corridor to the office – the goon who came for them earlier has gone as soon as the poisonous cloud appeared. Barry spares a brief thought that the Darbynians should really choose more reliable employees, and then Len is pushing him towards the other end of the corridor:  
  
“Go. There’s a door to the garden further down, it should be unlocked. Go!”

  
Barry resists the stupid urge to kiss Len goodbye and flashes out of the house, towards S.T.A.R. Labs and his suit. It takes all of twenty seconds to get there, but all Barry can think of are the people in that house, people who are likely dying right now, just because he wasn’t prepared, because he has to go get his suit instead of having it at hand. They will have to figure that out, somehow, but first, he needs to go back and contain The Mist.

 

People are screaming even louder by the time he gets back: he can’t see any signs of green, but there are bodies on the floor and some of the people still standing are trying to revive their friends or loved ones. A woman is crying, and a man is yelling at someone, high-pitched, panicked, terrified. Someone is calling an ambulance – another someone points at Barry and screams something about ‘The Streak’.  


Barry doesn’t waste time focusing on every single person in here: there’s only one man he needs to find, and when a greenish cloud rises in the back corner, Barry knows what to do.  
  
It doesn’t take long to tire Nimbus out: he’s been on the run for months, hiding who knows where, so he’s definitely not at his best. Once the man drops to the floor, unconscious, Barry has the time to take in the damage: he counts four- no, five bodies, and the thought comes back to him that if he was ready when Nimbus first appeared, there could be less. He takes a deep breath-

 

-and then he sees Len, on the floor, pale and unmoving.

 

Barry stops thinking. Next thing he knows, he’s back in S.T.A.R. Labs with Len spread out on the table and Caitlin is whisked out of her bed, still half-asleep by the time Barry gets her back to the lab.

  
“Save him,” he pleads, pushing his mask off: Len’s not breathing and Barry’s terrified, hands shaking with vibrations he can’t contain because he wants to do something but he can’t, there’s nothing he can do.  
  
The sight of Len wakes Caitlin right up: she starts pulling out the equipment she needs, stumbling around in her pajamas as fast as she can, and Barry gets his hands on Len’s chest.

  
“Don’t you dare die,” he whispers as he counts out the pushes and the breaths and prays all the while, thinking back to what Len said about not putting himself in danger for this. Barry knows that Len would’ve gone there anyway, with Barry or without him, but he still can’t help but feel this is somehow his fault.

  
“You wanted to talk, remember? About that thing? In the office?” he tells Len, as if that could somehow jolt Len back to life.  
  
“Get back,” Caitlin tells him, still in her pajamas, as she sets up an IV. “Barry, get _back_ , now!”  
  
He does: he wants to stay close, in case she needs something, but he’s an expert in forensic science, not medicine, so all he can do is flash back to the Darbynians’ place before someone realizes Nimbus is still there, and get the guy back to the pipeline.

 

After that, there’s nothing to do except pace some more, wait for Caitlin to do her best and hope it will be enough.

 

…………….

 

Barry never thought the sound of someone taking in slow, raspy breaths would make him feel so relieved that he has to sit down. Thankfully, Caitlin has pulled up a chair by Len’s bed, giving Barry an odd look as he thanked her for the fifteenth time.

  
“I’m going to get a change of clothes, alright? We have to wait for the IV to kick in, but I’m going to stay here, just in case.”  
  
She touches his shoulder, and Barry knows it’s supposed to be reassuring, but he can’t take his eyes off Len’s chest, rising and falling, rising and falling, so he ends up patting Caitlin’s hand in a silent thanks and keeps his watch.

 

It takes four hours for Len to regain consciousness: some of the longest hours of Barry’s super-fast life. Caitlin must’ve given him some painkillers, too, or maybe it’s just the oxygen he’s hooked onto that’s making him loopy, but he gives Barry a slow, sleepy smile, then winces and starts coughing.

  
“You’re okay. You’ll be okay, I’m here,” Barry says, even though that’s stupid because he couldn’t do anything when Len was halfway to dying, so his presence isn’t actually conducive to anything. But Len smiles again, as if that’s all he needs, and goes right back to sleep.

 

……….

 

In the morning, when Cisco gets there, Barry recounts the events of the night. He leaves out the kiss, focuses on The Mist’s attack, and nearly chokes on the account of Len’s injury ( _injury_ , he has to keep reminding himself, _not death_ ).

  
“How long is he gonna stay here?” Cisco asks with a frown.

  
“Until he’s alright,” Barry says, and something in his voice must turn out all weird and hard, because Cisco shoots him a curious look, but doesn’t protest any more.

 

Len wakes up a few times, for a few seconds, and Barry’s always there, wearing S.T.A.R. Labs sweats and a worried expression. He texts Joe sometime in the course of the morning, saying that he won’t be able to come in today, and lets him assume that Barry’s somewhere on Flash business. Technically, that’s not even a lie – as a vigilante, he’s responsible for his villains, right? Even if it means saving one of them instead of bringing them to justice.

 

By the time the sun sets, Caitlin announces that Len was lucky, and that he will make a full recovery, with some minor side effects that should be gone in time, with proper treatment. Barry makes a mental note to make sure the proper treatment happens, even if he has to drag Len back in kicking and screaming.  The man wakes up just as Caitlin’s changing his IV, but his eyes go right to Barry and he smiles again.

  
“You kissed me,” he mutters, and Caitlin fumbles with the IV bag; Barry sighs.  
  
“I think we should talk about that when you’re not high. Or poisoned.”

  
“You kissed me,” Len repeats with a definitive tone to his raspy, crackling voice, like he’s making a point that automatically wins every argument, and goes back to sleep.

  
“Barry-“

  
“ _We_ should talk about that never,” Barry looks up at Caitlin pleadingly. Thankfully she gets the hint – she probably doesn’t mention it to Cisco, because the engineer goes the rest of the day without teasing Barry or shooting him disapproving glares. Barry resolves to buy Caitlin a really nice thank-you bouquet later.

 

…………………..

 

Len’s sitting up, probably against Caitlin’s express orders because she keeps scowling at the man through the glass walls of the lab. Barry can’t help but grin, and it widens when the expression is mirrored on Len’s face.

  
“I hope you saved the tux,” Len chuckles – his voice is back to normal, or more accurately to that deep, soft timbre Barry remembers from ‘Saints & Sinners’. He wonders if that is actually a ‘Len’ voice, as opposed to the ‘Captain Cold’ sarcastic drawl. “I need to take you out for a proper dinner, someplace nice. This one didn’t go so well.”

 

“It was a job, not a date,” Barry reminds him. All it accomplishes is that Len winks up at him, and Barry realizes he’s walked into this one before Len even speaks it out loud.

  
“Well, you _did_ kiss me.”

  
“And you _did_ promise me bowling for the next date,” Barry smiles. He’s had days to come to terms with the whole kissing thing: he still feels a little weird about it, but weird in a way he needs to explore before he decides if it’s good weird or bad.

  
Probably good, judging by the way that kiss has been resonating in his latest dreams.

 

“Which is for the best, really,” Barry continues, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “The tux… kinda burned. When I ran.”

  
“Burned,” Len repeats, an eyebrow raised and his lips tight. “You burned a fifteen hundred dollar tuxedo I bought for you.”

 

That gets Barry’s eyes to widen impossibly:

  
“Wait – you _bought_ it?”

  
“Did you think I _sewed_ it, from the drapes?”  
  
“I… um. I thought you stole it,” Barry mumbles, and that just makes Len laugh until he starts coughing a little bit.

  
“You thought it was stolen and you still wore it? That’s priceless.”  
  
Okay, when Len puts it like that, it does shed some bad light on Barry’s moral standards. Maybe it’s because he’s kind of falling for Captain Cold: something has to give.

 

“Not to disappoint your expectations, but I’m not a petty thief. I wouldn’t plan a heist just to get something worth fifteen hundred bucks.”

  
“Your money still comes from stealing, even if you pay for stuff once in a while,” Barry huffs – it’s not _that_ much of a difference, really.

  
“Does that mean you’re not going to let me pay for our actual date?”

  
“I’m okay with paying to kick your ass at bowling,” Barry chuckles and reaches for Len’s hand, still hooked to an IV. He doesn’t deny the date part – his morals are already a slippery slope, probably iced over by Captain Cold, and he doesn’t mind sliding a little bit lower just now.

 

…………………….

 

“You saved my number under ‘Rhett’?! And you call _my_ puns awful.”

  
“Stop going through my phone and come back to bed.”

  
“Alright… Scarlet.”

 

                       
  



End file.
